


It's not about reciprocation (it's just all about me)

by Stickyouinawormhole13



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Beaches, Boys Being Boys, Coming Out, F/F, F/M, First Time, LotsOfsexuallyfrustratedteens, M/M, Mathematics, Mental Health Issues, Shirtless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-23 19:22:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8339719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stickyouinawormhole13/pseuds/Stickyouinawormhole13
Summary: When it comes to relationships, Al Potter isn't very good at keeping them. In fact, eleven times, to be exact. When his parents decide to leave him for a romantic rendezvous around the world, his sister somewhere in Europe taking bludgers to the face, and his older brother busy with aurora training, they send him to volunteer in the international organization LUMOS. A place where bright and aspiring youngsters are willing to help children in disadvantage. So now he's a thousand miles away from home, with nothing but a rucksack and a 1000 galleons. Al is in a mission to prove that he is not cursed with Potters-have-a-thing-for-red-heads, which he hopes will predict the future of his relationships. It's also entirely a coincidence that Scorpius Malfoy, the guy he has just about tried to ignore his whole hogwarts career, happens to be there.





	1. Al Potter likes numbers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh Well! I just came back from my charity work, and recently read John Green's abundance of katherines. This sparked me a Scorbus fic. Lame I know. Please review!

The morning after noted prodigious arithmancer Albus Potter graduated from Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry and got dumped by the eleventh time by a girl, lazed on his bed. Albus liked lying in bed, to be quite honest. It was the only thing he was good at besides arithmancy, which wasn’t all that much. 

Al wasn’t the smartest guy in the world. He knew that. He had a cousin named Rose Granger-Weasley, and that in itself was proof. Not only that, he had a spectacular amount of other family members with impressive abilities. There was Louis, his French-speaking, boy-loving, rambunctious-thinking cousin who owned an art studio somewhere in Paris. Roxy who spoke eight different languages, travelled all over the world, and chaser in the British team of Quidditch. Hugo, Rose’s little brother, was full of wild exciting facts about dragon taming, without a doubt, he was going to be under uncle Charlie’s wing the moment he kissed Hogwart’s dusty corridors goodbye. 

And well, there was Al. He was good in math.

It was a delightful surprise for the Potters. The moment Al had learned to count his fingers, he lived and breathed in the numbers. He liked competing with the calculators (muggle contraptions his dad brought from home one time, it was now just a battered piece of plastic with faded marks) and it was always such a great feeling whenever he could solve a problem just as fast. 

Which was quite an understatement. Math, he liked it a lot. It wasn’t something he learned straight out of book. Reading, reading, and reading was quite tiresome. The heavy textbooks never gave him interests. So it was never a surprise when he went home with the T’s to his name, they would often laugh it off, and pat his head. No one said Al was dumb to his face, but he just knew no one expected much from him.

And it was no surprise when he got an outstanding on Arithmancy. 

He didn’t get bored from the numbers. It was very precise, measurable and almost scientific method of predicting the future, not normally something that can be learned out of books. It was like learning people through the numbers, and he found it easier than talking to them. He liked cracking the long complex equations handed to him on parchment. He even thought of a game to see if he could solve any problems without ink staining his fingertips. 

Mostly, though, he found comfort in the numbers. Multiplying large numbers his head was very distracting indeed. Not this time, he stared blankly ahead. The blanket sprawled on the hard floor. The sun’s rays peeking out from his drawn curtains. He liked the color of his curtains, it reminded him of dark forests, the Slytherin common room, and her eyes.

He frowned at the last thought. Daisy, right, that was her name. She broke up with him on the last day of seventh year. Graduation was awkward. 

He should burn those curtains. A smile crept onto his face. The thought of firing incendio repeatedly while dancing like a mad man was quite amusing. He could do that, to keep him busy from the long summer holidays.

Oh Shit. Long summer holidays. He had to find a job now. Move out. He was an adult now. He had just turned eighteen last December. 

His stomach groaned. He hasn’t eaten since yesterday’s breakfast. Tears leaked from his eyes, not sure if he was crying from sadness or that he had been staring at the same spot unblinking for the past hour. 

A knock broke his gaze from the ceiling, and he glanced towards his door. His parents crept in, smiling sheepishly. Al blinked, then sat up. It was never a good sign when both his parents were in his room at the same time. Usually, they took turns to comfort his heartbreaks. He had caught them one time deciding over it with rock-paper-scissors. He grimaced. Perhaps, the last ten times were finally a sign that Al wasn’t the best with handling relationships. 

“Albus,” his father started, the same time his mother said, “Alby.” 

They stumbled over their words, looking quite flustered. 

Over the years, it had meant: 

1.) Your cousin-france-africa-china-antartica-is-visiting-today-so-please-try-to-be-nice-and-not-be-anti-social-and-sarcastic-so-please-wear-a-clean-shirt is downstairs.  
2.) Your girlfriend is distracting you from your studies. Again.  
3.) Well, um, when a guy and a girl love each other very much. They make certain big decisions in their lives, such as kissing each other in places not on the face. 

It never meant:

4.) Your girlfriend is downstairs, crying and looking quite miserable. She says she’s sorry and has made a terrible mistake. 

Al smiled tightly. He couldn’t help but hope for number four. Generally, Al was a very pessimistic and insecure person, but the girls he had dated always felt so real and genuine to him. The feeling of being loved and loving in return flooded his veins. He always thought they came back. They never did. 

His dad stepped in, closer to the bed. “Daisy just flooed,” he said.

“She’s worried about you,” his mother continued. She stepped forward, directly under the sun’s light. It casted a bright shine on her hair, it glowed like a red star. 

He blinked. Once, then twice. It was quite weird. All his girlfriends were red heads. So were James’s. His grandmother was a red head too, now that he realized. 

Merlin’s beard. It made sense now, he was probably in some Potter curse. To fall for red heads, and ultimately be crushed by them.

Al felt his dad’s hand on his shoulder, and he almost jerked in surprise. His dad didn’t notice, or just ignored it. He jumped when his mother crushed them into a group hug. He could feel his father’s glasses poking his cheek. 

“We’re just very concerned for you,” She said, her voice muffled by his shirt. She was a small woman, so Al towered over her. “And very confused,” she added softly, “She was a nice girl, what happened?” 

“She didn’t want a long distance relationships, she’s moving to Australia,” Al said, but quietly in his mind, he could hear her words echoing into his mind like a broken record player. 

I’m sorry. You weren’t what I expected. This isn’t working.

He had heard all sorts of explanations, but at the end of the day they were all the same. All of them. His family never ever crushed him with the expectations. In some way, other people expected a lot from him. They held their guesses and questions. As if he was just as great as his impressive family. They were curious of the mind of Albus Potter, and so they crept in closer, really get in touch, and then be disappointed. 

This isn’t heartbreak when I never really let them near my heart, Al thought. So he didn’t cry, he was much too depressed to cry. It hurt a lot more. 

His mother hugged him tighter, cooing softly, “Oh, Alby-baby.”

He cringed at the nickname. He hadn’t been called that for a long time. It was a foreign, weird, and just plain embarrassing. He wrestled out of her embrace, and grinned plastically, “But, I’m fine! I wasn’t really into her.” 

“Oh good, this wouldn’t feel really that horrible then,” His dad said cheerfully, then his mother gutted him with her elbow. He let out a loud ‘oof!’. 

“What?” He said, his eyebrows coming together.

“Well, at some point we need to sit down and assess your options,” His dad said, scratching his chin. He really liked doing that. “Not to sound like we’re looking for silver linings, but now you’ve got some free time this summer. There’s this community, or um an organization perhaps looking for volunteers-“

“It’s called LUMOS,” Ginny inserted, looking enthusiastic, and very driven. “and they help children. Disadvantaged children. Children-“

Oh no. No. No. No. Albus internally sighed. Right, Gryffindor parents were so predictable. Just when he wanted to lie down in bed, and moan over his past relationships, his parents wanted him to be helping out in charity.

There was a reason why the hat placed in Slytherin. 

“Well, that sounds really nice, but” Albus said, shaking his head, “I’d like to be alone today, just for today.” 

His father sighed, “Just think about it, it’s getting quite popular nowadays. You could meet people your age.” 

Of course, there was another ulterior motive amongst the helping other people bit. They wanted him to socialize.

When Al was nine years old, his parents had realized that maybe Al was a bit too anti-social for his age and held a strange obsession with his calculator. It was a normal Sunday morning. He was on the kitchen table, arranging his carrots in a patterns. Numbers were flying over his head, the television was magicked to function, and James was blubbering something about going to Hogwarts the next year. 

Al couldn’t focus, it was like he could feel the words pounding into his head, and the lights on the television were too bright and distracting and it hurt his brain too much-

“Oi, Alby-baby, are you listening to me?” James said, huffing. 

Al didn’t respond, he continued on his work. He felt something poke his side, and he turned to see James with his face as red as his mum’s hair. “Are you ignoring me, or just being stupid?” 

“Wha? I didn’t hear you.” Al said, frowning. 

“You must be stupid, then.” James said. Al felt anger bubble into him and was about to yell, but his mother beat him to it, she cuffed the back of his head. 

“Don’t call you brother stupid.” She hissed, looking very much irritated. There was lily perched on her hip, drooling. “Reese and Amelia are here.”

“Oh, yes, Come on, Al, let’s go play quidditch.” 

Al shook his head. 

“Why not?” James looked offended.

“I don’t want to,” He pouted. 

“Quit being a baby, it’s annoying.” James said, crossing his arms, several scratches marked them, “and stop playing with your food. It’s gross and weird.”

“I’m not playing with them,” Al defended. James was being stupid, didn’t he know there was always a pattern in everything? There was simply something to be put in place. “I’m creating a certain pattern, you see, they’re all prime numbers and-“ 

“Ew. Okay. Stop talking about math, will you?” James said, sticking his tongue out. “I’m already learning about sedimentary rocks, do you know how hard that is?” 

“Uhm, what’s a cemetery rock?”

“Sedimentary, you ponce,” James corrected. He then grabbed the crook his arm, and dragged him outside. Al struggled against the grip of his brother, digging his feet into the ground. He was pushed forward, landing ungracefully into the dirt.

“Guys, this is my little brother Albus,” He announced, a bright grin on his face, “he’s going to play as seeker.” 

Al glared at his brother from the ground. Someone grabbed him by the collar of shirt, and he froze. Fear entered his mind, a cold fear. 

“Hey there, I’m Reese,” A brown haired boy said, missing teeth on his smile. 

The girl came forward, red hair tied haphazardly on two pigtails, “Hullo, I’m Amelia.”

Al stared at the two strangers, stood frozen, the words stuck in his throat. His fingers felt numb, as if he couldn’t move them. 

“Oi, Alby, quit being rude!”

With that, he promptly vomited on James’s shoes. 

The healers were quick. It was all such a blur now. He remember his mum crying and dad nodding stoically, and being kissed everywhere on the face.

“Dad, really, I’d rather lay in bed-“

“Albus Severus Potter, you deserve a life,” His dad declared, using his stern voice. He stared at him for a moment, then his father turned sheepish, scratching the back of his head, “We’ve already signed you up, actually.” 

“Are you serious?” Al said flatly. 

“It’s for your own good,” His mother said, closing her eyes. “Your dad and I had decided to rekindle a bit of passion, travel the world a bit.”

“Wait, you’re leaving me alone?” He said, eyes widening, “With Lily!?”

“Oh no, Lily’s going to the international quidditch summer camp in france.” His father said, a smile splayed on his lips, “Don’t tell her yet. It’s her birthday present.”

“You seriously trust me with the house,” Al said incredulously. 

His mother laughed, quite loudly, and a bit hysterically, “Oh merlin! That’s hilarious. Al, you’re the most responsible one, but I wouldn’t trust you with a cauldron. Let alone a house!”

His father chuckled, patting his shoulder, “Well, LUMOS is actually kind of like math camp, except you teach the children, and well, I’m sure they have some activities for teenagers-“

“You just want me out of your hair,” Al grumbled. “Where is it?”

“Their headquarters are located in muggle London, but I’m sure they have a floo system located in there. It’s quite secluded.”

“You don’t actually know where it is,” Al gaped. 

“Oh hush! They change every year. Last year, I heard it was in Taipei.”

“I hope it will be something tropical this year, then,” his mother sighed dreamily, “You need to get that golden tan back, boy!” 

“Mum!”


	2. Al Potter likes to keep secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I felt compelled to post this and not wait a week. Oh nice self-control. I know.

Sometime there after, a rather large bundle of curly hair, with a look of pure madness had burst into the fireplace, green flames following her until she came a full stop toward Al in all her glory.

 

Rose had some weird notion that being their closest cum-only-female friend in their tiny group had automatically made her the den-mother to them all, so when she marched into the Potter family’s breakfast table, soot covered her face, two men trailing behind her with identical looks of anguish. She set her bag down with an ominous thud, an over-powering sense of importance settled immediately around the table.

 

“It has come to my attention that all of us had procured plans for the summer. Each any everyone one of you had owled me of it,” She announced, and propped her elbows onto the table. She stood taller just so she could peer over him with her eyes, “Except for you, Al. What’s this I hear about LUMOS?”

 

“Translation: ‘What the hell is this?’” supplied Manny. He propped a strawberry into his mouth. “I never knew you were into that sort of thing.”

 

“Righty-o, Alley-cat, you’ve never bothered to mention anyone about it.” Rose added.

 

“She dumped me,” answered Al tiredly. “My parents wanted me to be…busy.”

 

“So I heard. Listen, sweet cousin of mine, I’d love to comfort your woes of being single yet again, but I could seriously hex you right now,” She said. Her blue eye twitched, and fingers flexed warningly. “She freaking postponed my ministry internship, and now I’m stuck with going with you.”

 

“My parents.” He said without question. Rose nodded with vigor. At the same time, Manny stood up and muttered ‘I have to pee,’ and disappeared into the hall.

 

“Ronald said he’d make me wait next summer for my internship, I can’t wait that long!” She half-shouted, looking like the world was about to end, “and I’ve waited for that internship since I could wave a wand. No way!”

 

“You’re calling your dad Ronald now?” Al asked, missing the entire point.

 

“It was his idea to join you with this _thing_. Mum thought it was a wonderful,” then she groaned, and look quite sad for a moment, “Your parents came over for tea and discussed about your…recent behavior.”

 

“Merlin, it wasn’t like she left me in the altar,” Al spoke up feebly, grimacing slightly at the thought of marriage. He could never imagine it. If he couldn’t keep a girlfriend, then how could he handle being _married_? “They’ve always been worried with me, and kind of strict now, especially I didn’t do so well on my NEWTs and um, well, It’s just Lily now that I’ve left school.”

 

“You dated her for half the year,” She continued blithely, frowning deeply as if she had witnessed something quite inhumane. “That’s almost six months, Al, that’s your longest relationship so far. During that time too, you’ve always manage to flake out in every of our hangouts just so you could spend time with her—“

 

“I wasn’t that into her!” He protested, coloring. “It was a mutual break up. Both of us didn’t like long distance.” Which was absolute bollocks, if he heard it, there was a floo network and Merlin, as if wizards weren’t _that_ adept with the Internet.

 

Rose looked unconvinced, “Is that the only thing?”

 

“AYEEEEE! GAH! PUKE! PUKE!” interrupted Al from answering, as Manny screamed, Al thought, _Right, should have flushed._

 

“Forgive me if I missed,” Manny said upon returning, walking awkwardly back to the table. It was almost penguin-like. “It smelled like a troll’s arse in there.”

 

“I had to use both hands to hold my nose, so Manny Junior here was running wild,” he added, propping another strawberry into his mouth.

 

“I hope you had the decency to wash your hands first,” Al groaned. That was a mental picture that did not need to be visualized.

 

Rose colored considerably. Her fist shaking against her sides, an muttered something oddly like ‘ _boys’._

 

Al laughed. He had a wonderful idea to tease her further, and to not continue the previous conversations, “PENIS!”

 

Manny joined, “Dick!”

 

“ _Sausage_!”

 

_“Wand!”_

 

_“Snake!”_

 

“That’s enough!” She screamed, stomping her foot onto the tiled floors. “God, you guys are just gross!” It was no secret that Rose quite the virgin. Al had eleven girlfriends, and well, he was sure he was amp-ishly supplied with experience.

 

For the first time since they had arrived, Zephyr piped in, “LUMOS? isn’t that sort of like Red Cross in the muggle world? If it is, I’d very much like to sign up.”

 

“Oh, you just want to earn Brownie points for the healer program,” teased Manny. He grinned as he saw the dark haired boy flush.

 

“Well, they do international work,” Zephyr said, not looking into the eyes of anyone. His blue eyes sparkled like sapphires, and he sighed dreamily. “It is sort of cool to help people and… stuff.”

 

Al was quite selfish, so he didn’t really get the point of helping other people. He usually stuck to himself.

 

“Damn,” He whispered, “I totally should’ve gone with the Quidditch camp.”

 

Manny practically inhaled the strawberry as he heard this. He regarded Al with surprise, his eyes and mouth forming three perfect Os. Zephyr was immersed in mangling the bananas set in front of him, muttering something surgical implants and such.

 

“THE ONE IN FRANCE? COT DAMN IT!” Manny yelled, his face going slightly pink. He slammed his fist onto the table, creating a tremor, but this did not stop Zephyr. “I’ve been on reserve for months!”

 

Albus lifted a thick eyebrow.

 

Manny lifted an accusatory finger at him. “You damned Potters! Freaking nepotism, I tell you.”

 

Al opened his mouth to defend himself, but his train thought quickly reminded him that he was Quidditch Slytherin captain the year before, and he hadn’t been trying out in the first place. His family may have done something about it. He lamented over that fact for a moment, but ultimately he shrugged. They won in the end anyways. Quidditch wasn’t necessarily similar to mathematics, for one he had found it quite tiresome, but calculating speed and distance, the predictability of other teams were fun.

 

He liked winning, too.

 

“Well, whatever,” He said lamely. “I’m not really interested in the sport. It sounded a lot better than spending two months in the North Atlantic.”

 

Rose howled, throwing her hands in her hair, “North Atlantic? Are you serious?”

 

“Sorry,” Al muttered. It was quite shock for him, too. He had never been outside England before. “At least you get to ogle some guys in tight speedos.”

 

“Eugh, no thank you, I’d rather feel the spine of ministry books under my finger tips rather than a six pack,” Rose said, disgruntled. Then suddenly, her eyes widened, and added quite quietly, “That’s not really a bad idea.”

 

Everyone turned to stare oddly at Rose, who had started tapping her fingers onto the soft cotton of the tablecloth with intensity. The boys glanced at each other worriedly. She was thinking. A dangerous past time.

 

Her eyes lit, as if she had just acquired a Eureka moment.

 

“That’s it! You know what? This is our last summer as teenagers before we’re slaving over work and internships. Let’s make it the most rebellious, hottest, lust-filled summer we’ve ever had.” She finished with a flourish, and looked around imperiously, breathless with excitement. In silenced that ensued, Zephyr had leaned away from Rose in horror, Manny stared at her with wild eyes, and Al looked at her as if she had grown Voldemort’s head.

 

As if hearing his thought, Rose stared at him. He squirmed under her stare.

 

“Uh,” sounding squeaky. “That’s…a bit out of character of you, isn’t it?”

 

“Translation: What the fuck?” Manny supplied helpfully.

 

Rose was having none of it, so she placed a hand on her hip, and the other in the air dismissively. “Come off it, when was the last time we’ve actually acted like raging hormonal teens?”

 

Zephyr looking quite scared, said in a small voice. “Guys, I think we’ve lost Rose.”

 

Manny nodded his head. “Yeah, I’ve always thought she was asexual.”

 

Rose colored as red as her hair. “I am not asexual!”

 

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Zephyr said. “You were with Rory Goyle, weren’t you?”

 

She turned even redder, if that was possible, “Don’t even mention it,” she hissed, glaring at the smaller boy with scary, scary eyes. He shuddered under her gaze, and returning cutting incisions on the bananas.

 

Al watched Zephyr cut up the peels of the banana in tiny small pieces. One, two, three, and _fuck_ they weren’t symmetrical or in certain shapes, and he was doing everything so wrong—

 

“Albus!”

 

“What?” He snapped his head to Rose, who was glaring quite impressively.

 

“Are you in or not?” Rose asked, huffing as he stared at her confusedly.

 

“We’ve all decided that we’re all going to this LUMOS thing of yours,” She said petulantly.

 

“Really?”

 

“Well, yes, then maybe, we could find another girl for you to fawn over—“

 

Albus closed his eyes, and pretended to be far away. Wishing that he wasn’t here, but instead somewhere in a quiet little island. He cursed being in this house, where the Boy-who-lived raised him, and be sent to a magical boarding school in the outskirts of _Scotland._ Being secluded in their dark and dreary halls, and despite being staying claustrophobic castle, people tended to stay out of other people’s business. He also didn’t quite like how Rose seemed to sic girl after girl for him, as if he couldn’t form his own relationships—

 

“Well, I’m kind of already…in a sort of…” He swallowed, “ in a relationship.”

 

All eyes swiveled their eyes onto him. They all gaze at him in disbelief. Manny stared. Rose stared. Even Zephyr abandoned his mangled banana to stare at him. They all stared.

 

Until Rose whacked him on the back of his head, Al cursed.

 

“I can’t believe—“ She shook her head, “You didn’t have to lie to me if you didn’t like the idea, Al.”

 

“I’m not lying,” Al lied. Rubbing the small sore part at the back of his head. “I’m not! We’re just not really official.”

 

“Al, you literally just told me your girlfriend just dumped you,” She pointed out.

 

“Well, there was this other girl.” He supplied lamely.

 

“Really?” Rose said, raising an eyebrow in challenge. “Another girl? Then how come this my first time hearing this? Who is she?”

 

“Holy fuck, you’ve been holding out,” Manny said excitedly, “Two girls?” He whistled lowly.

 

“Is she in our year?” Zephyr asked, looking quiet interested as well. “Do we know her?”

 

“Well,” Al started, looking around for anything. He felt increasingly pressured at the faces of his friends. “She’s not from our year. Or school.” He spluttered out, trying to sound as firm and persuasive as he can be.

 

His friends looked amongst themselves, sharing a look.

 

“We’ve known each other for quite some time,” He said, more lies spilling out, trying to even sound convincing to himself. “and keep it low-key, very low-key because her family’s really strict and, um, very traditional. Pure-bloods. Traditional pure-bloods. Yessum, so it’s why I haven’t said anything cause, um I’m like mini-Harry, and they don’t like it much.”

 

Al shut his mouth with a click of his teeth. There was an alarm going off in some part of brain. It had urged him to quit with the lies, quit with lying to himself while he was still here. Though there was a part of him that whispered quietly, and Al guessed it was the Slytherin in him whispering.

 

_They don’t have to know._

“So, yeah, I’m not really supposed to say anything,” He finished with a breathless laugh.

 

Then suddenly his arm was being punch, and his neck straining with arm placed there. Manny was leaning against him, ruffling his dark hair, and crowing “You freaking Slytherin!” or something equally as stereotypical. With a bit of optimism, Al thought he could totally go with this.

 

Until he once again was under Rose’s gaze, which was wide and unblinking, her mouth formed a gawk, until a second later, was shut and her eyes had narrowed. He felt his heart speed up, going a mile per second, and _shit shit shit she knows. Of course, she knows._

She smiled tightly. “Well, why don’t you tell us more about this girl? Since you seem so adamant about talking about her before.”

 

Al jaw went loose, and all the thoughts raised above his head.

 

At the blessed moment, there was the sound of flames crackling, and _whoosh_! His parents had arrived with red cheeks and a glowing sister, clutching a ticket in hand.

 

Thank, Merlin.

 

“Al, guess what!?” Lily said, shoving the golden paper onto his face. “Quidditch Summer Camp!”

 

Then she seemingly noticed a seething Emmanuel Sanchez by his side, and smiled crookedly.

 

“In your face, Sanchez!”

 

.

.

.

 

Al should have known he wasn’t out of the clear yet. He knew barricading his door was proven fruitless. Never underestimate a nosey Weasley, Al thought bitterly, as he was cornered into his room.

 

“Come on, Al,” Rose said, landing unceremoniously onto his bed, grabbing his arm tightly. “Just tell me something, anything, about her!”

 

“Why do you want to know?” Al asked.

 

“Well, obviously, I’m usually the one who introduced you to your girlfriends, mind you,” She said, licking her lips, “You’ve never ever tried making an effort to meet anyone.”

 

He grimaced. “Oh..okay. Well, she’s pretty.”

 

Rose rolled her eyes, and made an indistinct noise, “Okay, something more specific, like the color of her hair?”

 

Oh, boy.

 

Al glanced to his desk, pictures neatly arranged. It showcased basically his whole life, and he felt quite exposed. His eyes glided over the Slytherin Quidditch team photo, he stood there stoically but was fighting a grin, and the team members were whooping, he could almost hear their victorious cries as they won the Quidditch cup. The something flashed onto the picture, something that stood out from the rest.

 

“Blonde,” He said absently, flickering his eyes back to his cousin’s, “She’s blonde.”

 

“Blonde,” Rose echoed, leaning back, a small smile in place, “That’s a first.”

 

“How’d you two meet?”

 

The lie came in smoothly, he had been practicing it five minutes Rose barged in with her questions, “Tri-wizard tournament. She’s from Beauxbatons. We’ve met from joint classes.”

 

“A French girl?” Rose said, unsure, “I thought you didn’t like long distance.”

“Well, we’re not too serious yet.” Al said.

 

“Okay, then. What’s her name?”

 

“What?”

 

“ _Her name,_ Al?” Rose pushed.

 

Well, this is the part Al, truly felt horrible with his lies. Though pride stopped him from spilling the whole truth. And so, he thought of the most presumptuous, old-fashioned, name he knew. He wracked his mind for his anything.

 

“Sagitta,” Al said finally.

 

“Sagitta,” Rose repeated. Al shrugged, it seemed legit enough. “We haven’t talked much lately.”

 

“Oh, really, is it because of Daisy?”

 

“Not really,” Al answered honestly, wait, _what_? “We’ve exchanged letters every now and then.”

 

“Can I see those letters?”

 

“No,” Al said firmly.

 

“Please?” She asked, puppy dog eyes were let out, “I just want to know about this girl, you know, you make me worry.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Believe it or not, you feel more like a brother to me than a cousin, sometimes you could replace Hugo himself, but don’t tell him that.”

 

Al scoffed, shaking his head with a smile, “Well, he is a bit bizarre.”

 

“You have no idea,” She agreed with a deadpan. “Can you please show them to me? When you’re ready?”

 

Al slumped in his seat, and nodded.

 

He hated himself. A lot.

 

It wasn’t that he was lying to Rose. The existence of those letters were just under his bed, crushing under their weight. It was a tender moment.

 

The moment didn’t last long, however.

 

Then out of nowhere something fluttered into his bedroom window, an owl. Al and Rose stared at each other for a second unblinkingly, and then Rose pushed Al onto his bed, and raced towards the sill. Al grabbed her ankle, and she screamed like a banshee, falling onto the floor, and landing onto his abandoned blanket.

 

Unfortunately, Al hadn’t anticipated Rose grabbing her wand, and with a quick _ACCIO!_ The letter was secured on to hand, and her eyes scanned on to the message.

 

“Oh, Al, I’m sorry,” She said and handed the letter guiltily to him.

 

He grabbed the letter with a glare, and read the message left for him.

 

_Albus,_

_This is my last message to you. I’d like to thank you for many things, but mostly, I’d just like to thank you for just existing._

_-S_

Al didn’t know why it hurt, but it did. He had never talked to the boy who Merlin knows how long, and he didn’t know why he felt so angry towards him.

 

_Scorpius Sodding Malfoy, why the hell did you keep sending me these letters?_

.

.

.


End file.
